Somewhere, right at this moment, we can absolutely guarantee that Alec Baldwin is breathing a sigh of relief.
Seriously, Alec should send Christian Bale a cookie basket. Because Christian Bale has made sure that Alec Baldwin’s insane ‘ignorant little pig’ rant at his daughter has been relegated to only second most brilliant recorded tantrum in history.
A recording of Christian Bale screaming at a Terminator Salvation DP has hit the internet and, if you do one thing today, you must hear it. It’s not just Christian Bale’s fury, you see – it’s the fact that he rants in about 13 different accents.
There’s a lot to like about Christian Bale – the fact that he’s not quite as good at acting as he thinks he is, the way he gave his Batman the most bewilderingly incoherent voice in cinema history, his, um, hair – but nothing even comes close to the way that Christian Bale promotes his films. When it comes to that, the man is a stone cold genius.
Upon the release of The Dark Knight, you’ll remember that Christian Bale got arrested on suspicion of assaulting his own clown mother in a hotel room. That’s dedication for you, and it worked – the film went on to become the second-biggest of all time. And it’s clearly a trick that Christian Bale wants to reproduce for his next movie Terminator Salvation.
What makes us so certain? Why, only a recording of Christian Bale going absolutely batshit at a director of photography on the Terminator Salvation set that’s just hit the internet. There are literally no words to tell you how amazing the tape is. It’s actually brilliant. We’re not overstating it one bit. Listening to Christian Bale going potty-mouthed berserk at a man who probably doesn’t even make a tenth of the money that he does is the best thing we’ve listened to all year.
Listen to Christian Bale’s incredible Terminator rant here
See? How incredible is that? We’ve found it so completely impossible to pick our favourite part of Christian Bale’s meltdown, so here’s a cluster of them for you. Oh, and by the way, you should take it as a given that the way Christian Bale’s voice lurches from LA drawl to gobby cockney to Nu Yawk screech to Welsh to borderline offensive comedy Pakistani during the rant is one of the best things about it. Because it is. Anyway, in no particular order:
“Do I walk fucking walk around the… NO! Do not shut me up, Bruce! Do I walk… No! NO!”
“Why the fuck are you walking right through? AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH like this?”
“Do you want me to go and trash your lights? DO YOU WANT ME TO GO AND TRASH ‘EM?”
“You’re a nice guy. YOU’RE A NICE GUY! But that don’t fucking cut it.”
“I don’t need any fucking walking. He needs to stop walking. I AIN’T THE ONE WALKING!“
Genius. There’s, we’ve said. Christian Bale is actually a genius. Obviously he’s a gigantic self-important prick of the absolute worst kind and spending a second in his company must be like spending three eternities getting kicked in the jaw by an angry horse, but Christian Bale is a genius as well.
According to IMDb, Christian Bale’s next movie is the Michael Mann film Public Enemies. Lord alone knows how he’s going to promote that one, but we’d wager that it’ll involve a tank of petrol, a lighter, a box of puppies and some sort of tribal dancing.
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I think it also has to be noted how completely inept McG is at no defusing the situation as the director. Instead he just hides in the corner, clutching his knees to his breast “Okay Christian, whatever you say”.
That shit wouldn’t cut it on a Cameron Terminator film I tells ya!
Stay off the fucking set if you aren’t in the scene. Seems simple enough.
Actually, I think Bale is right. I see nothing so incredible here except someone livid about something that he should be livid about. He’s acting, the film is rolling, and some idiot is walking around ho-hum behind the camera?
Everyone has a bad day, lets just leave it at that. How many times have you blown up at someone? I have do agree with David Scarborough, where was the Director saying “lets all take a break”, he should have got the guy off the set and sent Bale to his trailer. Five minute time out if you will.
The word “genius” obviously doesn’t mean much anymore – a new synonym for moron, perhaps? And would the world lose much if these trashy artifacts and the potential to make these trashy artifacts, along with their protagonists, evaporated? Not really. This goof has been watching too many Klaus Kinski tantrums, of which this is a sad imitation.
Haha. Honestly, I can’t believe all the people in the comments sticking up for Bale.
Apparently it’s totally reasonable to verbally attack & bully like a domineering asshole anybody who makes a mistake. (Well, as long as you’re a famous actor in popular films, it is.)
Terminator films = serious business, after all.
What an awful thing to do to a person. Christian Bale obviously has anger issues actually it goes beyond anger issues and needs to be lockded up in a psych ward for awhile. You do not treat people like that I don’t care if the scene was ruined. You people who stick up for Christian are as bad as him. Shame on you!!
@John and Haley: You two are out of your fucking minds. NO ONE has a right to bully and threaten violence as Bale did. NO ONE. If someone threatened someone you love like that, would you shrug and say ‘Well, s/he had it coming for walking into view on the set’? If I threatened to kick your mom’s ass, would that be acceptable?
@Feather: This goes beyond ‘bad day.’ I would expect to hear an abject apology after a tantrum like that.
Oh dear. That is a Joss-Stone-at-the-Brits bad voice.
This guy is a bully i can’t believe how anyone can stick up for him where does he get off thinking that speaking to another human being like that is acceptable.But then look how he treats his mother so it isn’t such a big surprise.
Totally unacceptable behaviour. Incredible that people are attempting to defend Christian Bale here.
What a jerk-off. I’m sure you’ve never #$@*ed up before, huh, Christian. I would have kicked him in the nuts and laid the boots to him if he spoke to me like that, Prima-donna.
He’s just hungry.
what’s funny is when things like this happen, ppl want to act as if they’ve never had their buttons pushed to the point where they just went off or got angry. i’m not condoning what he did but unfortunately stuff like this happens. who really knows what REALLY happened. the portion that the public knows could have been the last straw for bale. maybe bale had been telling the guy in a more congenial tone what it was he was doing. we don’t know the rest of it. the truth is that many ppl nowadays lack self-awareness. you can tell them something that they’re doing over and over but they just don’t seem to get what ur saying until you start yelling at them. who has the problem now?
I don’t know why anyone would excuse such behavior and why he still has a job. I hope that poor man gets a raise for not raising to the level that Bale did. At least one of them was professional.
To anyone who can even contemplate justifying Bale’s behavior imagine trying this at their place of business, and expect no consequences? Since it is not practical to fire an actor, I think he should be heavily fined for this.
hollander is right in that everyone has the right to get upset. But if you take it too far and set off the wrong people, you’ll reap what you sew. If he went off on me like that, I know he’d end up regretting it for a long time, or at least make him want to do a self check before going off again. The only reason people act like this is because those around them let them get away with it.
You can’t seriously consider Bale’s reaction appropriate in any way. He’s an actor. His job is to act, according to the script, when the director says action. The DP’s job is to shoot the scene.
S where does Bale get off screaming at this guy? It’s not his job. If the DP is messing up, the director of the film needs to fix it. I suppose Bale could be upset that he’s only earning $400 per minute intead of $500 when the film takes a little longer, but that hardly justifies the outburst.
So I’m staying on *my* high horse and looking down my nose at Christian Bale. Who’s with me?
I’ve spent the last twenty five years in the film industry the last en of them as a Cinematographer (DP) and one of the reasons that I retired and went into another field was that I got so sick and tired of these so called actors who think that the crew is somehow sub-human compared to them. I’ve worked with some of the great in the business and most of them would have had a good laugh and moved on but not this idiot. Who do you think would be responsible if the footage looked like crap in the screening room and had to be reshot?
I would like to point the lovely the readers of Hecklerspray towards this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YTihsJQHt48
Possibly the funniest thing to come out of this…well nearlly as funny as the original!
Whatever happened, there is NO EXCUSE for this temperamental, tyrannical, hypocritical (“professionals” don’t rant) asshole’s unhinged verbal abuse. Condoning it (like surely happened on the set), or worse, glorifying it (this article), while he is paid millions of dollars to be “a genius” is a sad and terrifying double standard. Personally, the guy seems to need professional help. Publicly, at this pace, he’ll join Tom Cruise’s elite Hollywood Loonies Club in no time. Perhaps he already has?
Bale has some serious anger problems. There is no excuse for him to be so abusive. He doesn’t deserve the credit he gets. I loved him in just about every movie I’ve seen him in but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s totally immature. This reminds me off a baby wailing when he gets a toy taken from him.
It’s not that he went off, it’s the shit he said when he went off. I will quit the set if he isn’t fired? Are you fucking serious?
He acts like a fucking Hilton sister, and is a douche because of it.
I’ve been watching a series on the History Channel called “The Universe” and they have yet to bring up the subject about how the Universe revoles around anyone in holleywood. I guess Stephen Hawking is save=ing that for an upcoming eposiode.
Dude. . . . . . They all need to take a page out of Obama’s brother’s book and smoke a joint, with all that smoke on set anyway who’ll know the difference?
Just imagine the out takes
Absolutely hilarious: http://www.thetartpaper.com/articles/view/605
Just makes me love Bale even more.
That was priceless. I almost pissed my pants. Have a sandwich, some milk, and a Valium, Christian. You’ll feel better.
A spoilt yet great actor but has serious underlying problems,perhaps hes not getting enough money? i seriously doubt it,yes the DP made a mistake but no one deserves to be spoken to like that,get a grip Christian and realise that you are only human and not above the rest of us,so on a final note go fuck yourself.
Sooo politically correct, you yanks, like none of you ever had an episode like this. maybe you did but it would never get leaked online. Anyway, this just seems fake to me, like the michael cera runt to judd apataw. But you have to give credit to the guy, that rant its in a Tarantino-reservoir-dogs level of awesomeness.
I liked him better when he was hitting his family.
I hate to say it, but the weak minded saps on the production crew that didn’t b#tch slap him off the set and start the search for someone else to play John Conner are the problem here. The world does not revolve around Christian Bale, and it never has. In a world like today’s, people like him (Bale) make me vomit in my mouth! I’m sure most of this movie will end up being made on a computer with no real effects and talent anyway, so why does it matter? The movie industry is full of shame!
If I was that lighting guy, they would of had to work in some kind of scene where John Conner gets two f@#king black eyes to cover for the fact that he lost his arrogant Hollywood temper with the wrong guy on the set. NO EXCUSE, whatsoever!!! I can understand being upset in the heat of a great and intense scene, but to carry it on and on the way he did, . . . . not letting it go, . . . that’s a mark of a true asshole! He just earned a spot on the celebrity bus crash
I work on film sets and I can tell you that what the DOP did, Shane Hurlbut, who I have worked with and can confirm is idiot, is completely unprofessional. When a scene is being shot, regardless of who is in it, no one moves, as it is distracting to the actors. Even kraft services (the folks who pass out the snacks) know this. And no offence but I have heard much worse from much less known actors/directors.
Please read this account of the Bale Incident from Ain’t It Cool News. Like J. Thornhill above, I also work on sets, as a director AND a DP, and I agree – DPs just don’t do this kind of stuff. SOMEONE has to be a boss.
From Aintitcool.com:
“Hey folks, Harry here… I’m getting slammed with assloads of people angry at me for not posting the Bale explosion from the set of McG’s TERMINATOR: SALVATION. Well, first off – there’s a real simple reason. It isn’t news. And it certainly isn’t cool news. It is a moment in a man’s life taken completely out of context and most likely leaked to personally embarrass Christian Bale.
Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking… There’s no excuse for a temper tantrum like that to ever occur and if you are going to act that way, you deserve to be embarrassed by your own actions.
Except, you want to hear the REALITY behind that clip?
I know this because I happen to be somewhere where someone that was there that day and for the shoot is. And this person isn’t a publicist, nor are they invested in Bale’s career. They’re just someone that thinks it is absolute bullshit that this moment in Bale’s life is being aired and that the real story should get out there.
The DP on TERMINATOR SALVATION, Shane Hurlbut, is a apparently a light tweaker. He’s a fairly young DP and likes to fiddle with his lights on set during action, which is a big “NO NO” on most productions unless worked out in advance with performers. But apparently Shane was a pretty unrepentant light tweaker.
The scene in question, was a very emotional and tough scene between Christian Bale and Bryce Howard. A scene that required soul bearing and a deep level of immersive concentration. The sort of scene where everyone on set knows not to get in anyone’s eye lines, and definitely not to move lights around while FILMING. You lock that shit down before the scene starts.
Bale had indeed warned the DP on multiple occasions about messing with lights while the cameras were rolling, and Bale was in the midst of a painful scene with Bryce, what was described to me as being the emotional center of the film and his character for the film.
Now, the reason I know all of this is because the person that was there, felt that it should be made perfectly clear that Christian Bale was the utmost gentleman and cool guy on set. And the DP really was doing something that professional DPs with experience just don’t do. Not during a performance.
You don’t need me to give you a link, it’s all over the internet, I just felt that you should know what really went down – and that this particular outburst did indeed modify the DP’s behavior – and for future DPs. Fuck with the lights before and after your actors are acting. Not during.”
If Bale were in my movie, I’d hold his ashtray for him while he ranted at anyone he wanted to, and so would any of you. So what if he’s a prick? We’re talking many millions. I’ve had to take shit off of people for free sometimes.
If he spoke to me like that. Regardless on how much I wanted to work on Terminator I would of knocked him the fuck out the cheeky twat. Ok the guy made a lil mistake. Get a fuckin grip Bale u tool. Just because u can smack your mum about doesnt mean you can do it on set.
I would love to be that DP. Bale would of been KO’d.
The guy is clearly a complete tool…if he spoke to me like that it would be the last thing that came out of his mouth before i broke his jaw!!
Bale was simply tying to stop an idiot from sabotaging his career.
If Bale just let this guy distract him, and he puts out a crap performance, he’ll end up in ‘the happening 2′ talking to plants with mark walburg.
If you are on top you have to defend yourself from idiots.
I am reminded here of the 4 projects I was privileged to do with Jack Lemmon. Let me just say, there are actors and there are ACTORS! Some, like Jack, understood every aspect of the process. You could walk up to him in the middle of a scene and say something or fix something and he would just start again or right where he left off with no change of “fervor” or “emotion”. Many of today’s actors forget that what they do, at the end of the day, is PRETEND. Too many of them have to “live” the part in front of everyone. Geraldine Page, probably one of the greatest and best known “method” actresses told me once when a I asked her why so many of the young actors had to “prepare” so overtly on the set and in plain view of all and she, somehow, didn’t. What was she doing that was so radically different and invisible but still so intense, shot to shot to shot, with ‘tears on…..tears off…..tears on…..etc’ and she replied that “I do all that same stuff these young folk do, all the preparation, all the revving up of emotion………..only I do it ALL at home. I come to the set with one thing, a mnemonic device, to remind me of all the work I did OFF the set”. I’m not defending a dp who is overzealous of his craft or a director who constantly interrupts the actor with new “inspired” dialogue or the sound man who has to put a mike back on an actor who just ripped it off being very emotional, or a craft service person who, trying to give an actor what they “need right now” or any of the myriad crafts that service the making of a scene in a movie. I’m merely stating that the shooting of a movie is a big and complex process involving often hundreds of people in a sort of pyramid supporting the thing on the top, the actor or the director. But without the pyramid’s base, there is no “top”, just a lone mime on the Promenade. In the last decade or so, we have seen a constant erosion of the relationships that should exist between crew and cast, more treating of the cast as somehow apart from the process. The Star system is mostly to blame with agencies calling the financial shots, packaging actors for a film with little of no regard to whether they are the right choices for a particular script and directors are being more and more forced to accept these “corporate” choices further separating the stars from everything else. Jack Lemmon was such an amazing actor, as was Paul Newman, but they were also GREAT technicians who understood the process and could adjust to anything. Did they ever get frustated or put out with aspects of the that process? Of course. They were humans, after all. But lose it on the very people responsible for getting these “perofmances” from actor to audience……..never. As Bob Altman used to say, though sometimes didn’t actually practice, “filmmaking is Art, but it is Group Art” No one should see themselves as above the Process (Al Pacino). Respect and restraint from Both sides of the camera should be the rule. When it is not, the movie suffers, the players suffer, the industry suffers. That unfortunate rant happened ON the set….it should never have happened, BUT, it should have stayed ON THE SET.
Thank god he wasn’t born in Shakespears time. His career would never have taken off screaming at people in the audience getting up to go pee, scratching their head, and god help you if you sneezed or something.
Don’t actors sign contracts for these films? What would they have to loose by telling him to shut the hell up and go to his trailor or have security PUT him out the door if he refuses. Replace him and sue for the cost of not honoring his contract and profit lost.
sorry spelling was not my best subject.
Pick out any Lemmon’s movie and then a movie Bale made at the same age you will see Bale is hardly even an average actor in anything not type casted.
If Bale can’t control his Adult ADD then he needs to find a job in a closed room all by himself with no distractions. What does he do when they have extras moving around in the background? Film them separate and green screen them in?
All you moralists would hoover Christian Bale’s unwashed bell-end for a chance at the millions.
“13 different accents”
Get that man a bucket of chicken and a priest.
There is a such thing as humility. I would never talk to anyone like that my conscience wouldn’t let me nor would i allow someone on the job to be condensending to me either its not worth it. People need to be careful how they treat people on their way up the ladder of success you meet to very same people on your way down.
Christian Bale molests collies.
Where was the director during this rant? I thought it was the director that controlled the set, not the actors. Why didn’t he send Bale back to his trailor to cool off for a while, as the man is clearly very emotionally upset? Some of these actors seem to forget that they are only actors, and their job is literally to only pretend to be someone else temporarily. Maybe he was very tired and under a lot of stress to complete the scene, but it’s still no excuse to go over the line like that. Bale is being paid millions for this particular movie, not $30K like the stage hand he’s ripping apart. The least he could do is act like a highly paid professional. Bale is always in the public eye, even when he doesn’t realize it, as made obvious by this tape. In the end he’s really only hurting himself, and some better and more demanding directors in the future may not be willing to work with Bale if he’s developed a reputation for being difficult on set. Bale might want to remember that it’t not up to him what movies he’s in. That decision is ultimately made by the directors (yes directors) and producers of the movie. In any case, shame on the director for not immediately defusing the situation. Obviously he doesn’t have much control over Bale or the set itself, which probably means it’s not going to be a very good movie. Something tells me this movie is going to be very heavy on the special effects, and rather shallow in terms of character development and dialogue. No different than Terminator 2 or 3 I suppose…..
Bale is a punk. Thinks he can run it all, being a professional is also being part of a team!!!! You can have a star but with no team to back you, your nobody….
He has a right to be upset as an actor; however losing your temper and threatening physical harm is unprofessional.
It’s okay due to the intensity of his “craft?” Well my “craft” is paramedic. I’d say it’s slighty more intense than acting. Do you think it would be okay for me to go off on some drunken jerk who just killed a family or cuss out a man who abused his wife? Do you know how long I would have a job if I did that? I’d say life-and-death situations are a little more intense than acting, so if us mere mortals can keep it together, then Man up Batman. I guess that’s why he only “acts” like a superhero.
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